An Old Guy Reconsiders Ecclesiastes

I’m not an intensely religious man. I ponder the questions of who, what, how and why in much the same way I imagine men always have. But I do read the Bible and I have my favorite passages. In the Old Testament I gravitate to Ecclesiastes 9:7 to 9:10.

9Live joyfully with the wife whom thou lovest all the days of the life of thy vanity, which he hath given thee under the sun, all the days of thy vanity: for that is thy portion in this life, and in thy labour which thou takest under the sun.

10Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest.

Now something in verse nine always bothered me. “All the days of the life of thy vanity.” So, Solomon says our lives and our happiness and our loves and our families are in vain?

I dug a little deeper and found that the Hebrew word being translated as vanity is “hevel.” The root meaning of hevel I have read, is “mere breath.” And the connotation is insubstantial, ephemeral. That makes a little more sense. Life is ephemeral. We have a thousand versions of this. “Time flies, “life is short,” “ars longa vita brevis,” etc., etc., etc.

I felt better about that. I retranslated that passage:

Live joyfully with the wife whom thou lovest all the fleeting days of thy life, which he hath given thee under the sun, all thy fleeting days:

That’s better. So, that’s how I became a biblical scholar. The pay is non-existent but I imagine the big guy up there will appreciate me straightening out the English language version of his book. So, I’ve got that going for me which is nice.

But I was still disturbed by the negative vibe of all this ephemeral talk. Was Solomon trying to bum us out? In fact, the whole book of Ecclesiastes was a giant downer. Here’s a guy who’s got everything in the world. He’s got gold, silver and bronze literally piled up to the sky. He’s got wives and concubines to the extent that he probably was considering a vow of chastity just to save his own life. He’s blessed by God with matchless wisdom and a mighty nation that views his word as law. He should be the happiest man on earth. Why is he griping about everything under the sun?

It’s because he sees the end of the road. He sees his own death on the horizon. In other words, he’s old.

And now I’m old and I understand. You see all the things you should have done or shouldn’t have done and you’re filled with regret and anger at yourself. And since Solomon knows himself to be the wisest man on earth he sees it as his part to tell the rest of us to stop chasing all the meaningless stuff like gold and silver and empires and just eat our bread, drink our wine and love our wives for as long as we’re allowed.

Now I no longer see Ecclesiastes as a depressing work. I see it as a friendly signpost to the rest of us to cut to the chase and take care of the things that have actual meaning. Keeping healthy with food that is good, enjoying the simple pleasures of life and loving your wife and your family. And don’t waste time. Time is short. Use it. So that’s why my articles are short too. I’ve got most of today off and I intend to have some fun. Have a great day.

Since my readers don’t always stop by every day I figured I’d paste this poll on each post for a while to see what folks call themselves. This is the post the poll came from Who Are We?

… And that got me thinking. Who are the people who read my blog? I thought it might be fun to see what the cross-section looked like. If you feel like saying what you believe in, feel free to leave a comment and/or pick a label from the poll below. I think it might be interesting.